Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

A discussion about social media and its use in sales and marketing often leads to a discussion about return on investment—the elusive ROI.

The fact that incorporating social media into sales and marketing can generate return on investment has been and continues to be proven. Just search “social media ROI” or “proof that social media marketing works” and you will have plenty of proof. That’s not the problem. The problem is the question about ROI is still being asked, and it’s because many people are still unclear about how to measure ROI and not about whether they can prove it can be measured.

That confusion is why the following five questions are so important when it comes to understanding where to start, what to focus on, and what meaningful social media ROI looks like. Many organizations start in the wrong place or focus on the wrong metrics. Hopefully the following will prove helpful....

As power shifts from brands to consumers, knowing your consumer has never been more important. But brands are often clouded by big data.In the post-advertising world, many brands struggle to understand the people they’re selling to and why they behave as they do. As power shifts from brands to consumers, knowing your consumer has never been more important. Even the accounting firm PwC has woken up to the fact that “every industry participant will need to invest in customer understanding and engagement.”

But so long as this point is couched solely in data-analytics terms, it tells only part of the story.

It’s easy to feel lost and, oddly, reassured by the introduction of “big data” (defined by Gartner as volume, velocity and variety), or colossal swaths of demographic, behavioural and customer-preference numbers. History is littered with examples of how the misuse of big data can precipitate poor decision making on a massive scale. The U.S. military’s overreliance during the Vietnam War on quantified data at the expense of human observation in the field is a classic case (read Brian Bergstein’s piece in the MIT Technology Review [20 February, 2013] for background). In a different context, data-harvesting giant Tesco’s handling of the recent horse-meat crisis reveals that having a wealth of available data but little empathy for your audience and their world can obscure the bigger picture, thereby impeding effective decision making.

Recent studies indicate to behavioural economists that people don’t make decisions or act according to reason (read Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow [2011] for a seminal exploration of the factors that do influence human decision making)....

An estimated 67 percent of American adults use Facebook today. That makes the social media giant on the surface the best channel for small business owners to connect with their clients, customers and partners. But there are reasons to rethink Facebook engagement.

Those reasons include signs some users are getting tired of the site. The social network is completing a new redesign intended to reignite the spark with its audience. However, it could be too little too late.

Re-evaluating Facebook Engagement

Small business owners need to be concerned about “Facebook fatigue” too. It means that the audience they are trying to reach may be vacating the site, rendering marketers’ efforts fruitless. Below are four reasons you may want to reconsider the value of your Facebook engagement....